Marc Jacobs

What drives the escalating fascination with haute couture in ready-to-wear? Ringing out the shows in New York, Marc Jacobs amplified his ongoing romance with the sculptural drama of savoir faire on Wednesday evening. His ceremonious collection - presented in a dark Park Lane Armory lit theatrically by spotlights, to a funereal Philip Glass choir score orchestrated by Steve Mackie - played all the polygonal keys, bending exaggerated sizes in and out of shape on the body. The heads of women were wrapped in scarves to 1980s Parisian heights, then crowned with wide-brimmed planter hats by Stephen Jones, their shoulders draped in great big scarves and stoles. Jacobs evades post-show comment, so you could only imagine what might have adorned his mood board: the broad-shouldered costumes and hoods of Grace Jones, the gargantuan suits of David Byrne, or the mummifying ensembles of Dominique Deveraux in Dynasty.

Costume designer Nolan Miller imbued the boardroom feminists of that TV show with the cuts and styling of haute couture as well as the ideas of the 1980s’ most radical designers such as Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler and Emanuel Ungaro to establish their power looks in Denver’s male-driven oil industry. Jacobs’ collection bore hints to all of the above, which brings us back to the question at hand: why is haute couture once again stomping its bombastic feet through the racks of ready-to-wear? The women’s movements of recent months are an obvious factor - after all, couture rhymes with confidence - but trekking through endless New York Fashion Week collections this past week, designed from market strategy points of view and aimed so cynically at shifting product, Jacobs’ fetish theatre of haute couture seemed positively rebellious.

Tell this man he needs to sell more merchandise and he’ll turn the other way, certain of the fact that the fantasy of fashion is what will save us all in the end. Marketeers will laugh at that notion, but if it’s so ridiculous what is even the point of all these fashion shows in the first place? Nobody needs to see a plain shift dress or an office worker suit on a podium. It’s not selling any more of them, and it’s certainly not inspiring anything. The hallowed runways of fashion week were never meant to feature commercial daywear, deifying normality like that with bells on. You may look at Jacobs’ show and think it unwearable but it’s only because fashion hasn’t lived up to the creative bar it set for itself in those glamorous, fabulous 1980s when even tailoring brands used their platforms to promote aspirational, avant-garde fashion to the masses. So rather than trapping this show in a box of crazy, why not embrace it as the new normal? Go on, give couture a chance.